What Freedom Really Means: From Sovereign Individuals to Sovereign Collectives

On self-actualisation, shared purpose, and what comes after success.

When we imagine freedom today, we often think of movement: living anywhere, working anywhere, and belonging everywhere—or perhaps nowhere at all. The 1990s book The Sovereign Individual painted a vision of this kind of future—one where technology would free us from geography, institutions, and nation-states.

Pieter Levels, one of the nomad scene’s best-known entrepreneurs, embodies this idea. As the creator of websites like Nomad List and Remote OK, Levels built tools that empower people to design their lives around borderless autonomy. He famously runs his businesses solo, automating systems to minimise overhead and maximise freedom.

Levels is the perfect example of the sovereign individual: self-reliant, untethered, and independent.

The lonely edges of sovereignty

But even Levels speaks openly about the challenges of nomadism.

In interviews, he highlights the same problems every nomad encounters: the difficulty of building lasting relationships, the logistical headaches of borderless living, and the emotional toil of being constantly on the move. Untethered freedom often reveals its limits: disconnection, isolation, and a lack of support.

This tension isn’t new. Throughout history, autonomy and interdependence have coexisted. Medieval guilds gave artisans freedom through shared support networks. In the historic United States, frontier communities relied on collective infrastructure for survival. Ancient trade networks like the Silk Road created systems of mutual reliance across borders.

If the sovereign individual represents autonomy at its peak, the sovereign collective reflects the next stage: a freedom built not on isolation, but on connection. It’s a new model for living, one where independence and interdependence coexist, aligning individual autonomy with shared systems.

From personal autonomy to collective purpose

Sovereignty often isolates as much as it liberates.

What happens when you need healthcare in a country that doesn’t know you exist? When your friends are scattered across timezones, reachable only through apps and screens? Or when burnout hits, and there’s no community to catch you? These challenges are the hidden costs of untethered freedom.

As global mobility accelerates, the systems we rely on have failed to keep up. Travel privileges, healthcare, pensions, and safety nets remain tied to borders, even as people live and work across them.

This mismatch reveals a deeper issue: the systems we depend on no longer reflect how we live, leaving gaps that traditional structures can’t fill. These gaps don’t just affect nomads—they also confront founders, creators, and investors who’ve achieved peak individual sovereignty. After reaching personal success, many find themselves asking: What now?

Some have begun to answer this question by building new systems of connection. Consider Vitalik Buterin’s experimental pop-up city, Zuzalu, in Montenegro—a space where people gathered to explore decentralised living and frontier technologies. Or Terra Alta in Portugal, where regenerative villages are creating intentional communities rooted in sustainability and shared purpose.

These examples reveal a pattern: personal autonomy often evolves into a desire to collaborate and create something larger. Once our individual needs are met, it’s a natural instinct for us to look outward.

From self-actualisation to self-transcendence

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often cited as a framework for understanding human motivation. It begins with the basics—food, safety, and shelter—and progresses upward through belonging, esteem, and, at its peak, self-actualisation.

Self-actualisation is where many imagine the journey ends: achieving autonomy, personal success, and the freedom to live authentically. It’s the essence of the sovereign individual: realising one’s potential, untethered from external constraints.

But Maslow’s later work introduced something even higher: self-transcendence.

While self-actualisation focuses inward, self-transcendence looks outward. It’s about finding purpose beyond the self—contributing to a greater whole, building systems that uplift others, and creating meaning through connection.

A quest for autonomy often grows into a drive to create systems that offer connection and shared value. A nomad might begin by working independently across countries but later launch a coliving space or online community. Similarly, post-exit founders and investors often turn their success toward projects like intentional communities, co-ops, or climate initiatives—ventures rooted in collaboration and impact.

This reveals a deeper truth: true freedom isn’t just about living for oneself. It’s about building a future where individual sovereignty is enriched by collective purpose.

Building the sovereign collective

If the sovereign individual is about freedom from constraints, the sovereign collective redefines freedom as connection. It bridges autonomy and belonging, creating systems that enable individuals to thrive together.

These systems align individual freedom with shared infrastructure, including:

• Coliving spaces that go beyond a bed and desk, creating genuine community and support.

• Borderless safety nets that ensure social protections anywhere in the world.

• Decentralised networks that share resources and responsibilities across borders.

The infrastructure of the sovereign collective is already taking shape. My company, SafetyWing, is building a global social safety net for nomads and remote workers, untethering healthcare from geography so people can live and move freely. Another project, Cabin, is experimenting with decentralised coliving, creating intentional spaces where autonomy and connection coexist.

The sovereign collective isn’t imposed by geography or institutions. It’s a bottom-up movement, driven by individuals and communities designing systems that make freedom sustainable—systems rooted in shared purpose and collaboration.

A path forward for a connected world

Fragile institutions, rising climate emergencies, and widening inequality reveal the limitations of the legacy systems that govern our world. Solving these challenges requires a new vision—one that balances autonomy with community, freedom with belonging, and individual empowerment with shared resilience.

This is what the sovereign collective provides. But it goes beyond practical systems—it’s a deeply human shift. It’s about recognising that freedom is most meaningful when it’s shared, not isolated. And that perhaps this is where self-actualisation has been leading us all along: not further apart, but back to each other.

🗣️ How do you balance freedom and connection? What will it take to create a world where everyone can belong, move, and thrive—together? Share your thoughts: